Shift 87 Review

Rooms for improvement

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Back in the 80s, a UK game show called The Krypton Factor saw contestants completing a series of physical and mental games in a very British way, often while wearing horrendous tracksuits. One of the rounds was called “Observation” which involved watching a video, then rewatching an edited version of the same video immediately afterwards and noting the differences between the two. A coffee cup might change colour, a notice might have different wording, or someone may no longer be wearing the same sweater they were the first time around. Now, take that premise and transpose it to gameplay, but with a horror twist. The result is Shift 87, minus the tracksuit.

Your job as an anonymous worker for a faceless corporation is to traverse a number of environments repeatedly and spot anomalies between them, which you report to the higher-ups via a Ghostbusters-esque handheld device. Gameplay sits somewhere between a walking simulator and a spot-the-difference, while the anomalies can range from subtle changes in the environment, to obviously weird phenomena such as a previously dry corridor being completely flooded or filled with rats. 
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Other than reporting an anomaly and moving around each of the three environments, there’s no interaction from the player. Each cycle of reporting takes between five to ten minutes per environment, so it’s a short experience to dip in and out of. To progress to the next environment, you need to successfully navigate six cycles of the level in a row, either reporting correctly or not reporting at all if you don’t think there are any changes. Not every cycle contains a change because of the way the levels are randomly generated, so if you report one incorrectly, you drop back to zero for that environment — subtly indicated by a timer, calendar or list level. Even more discreetly, the game marks on a plaque how many anomalies you’ve found on each level to help you measure your progression.

The environments are procedurally generated, and in certain levels there may appear to be more than one anomaly. For instance, on one cycle, the carpet was different in two different places but I could only report one of them and it was unclear which anomaly the game wanted me to report on. In fact, the hands-off approach to the game left me feeling more discombobulated than frightened. There were a couple of very effective jump scares (tick off the “apparition hurtling at you” and “small girl facing a wall” boxes here), but the majority of the changes you need to record are alterations to the environment which range from obvious to “huh?”. 

The three environments — an office floor, a factory floor and a dark gas station — are graphically distinct, but not hugely exciting to navigate time after time. The gas station in particular is the trickiest of the three because you’re reliant on your torch to highlight areas, making spotting differences very difficult at times. In some cases, I tried pointing my meter at places I thought might have had changes, even though I had genuinely no clue, just to try and break the loop of monotony. In total, there are 66 anomalies to report across your shifts — 22 per area — but after the third shift, I was ready to wrap it up. 

It’s a great premise, but it hinges on a couple of things that didn’t work. The difference between an obvious anomaly (a shadowy figure glaring through a window) and a tiny one (the addition of a set of drawers) is huge, but trying to locate these small changes proved very frustrating. Furthermore, the storytelling is minimalist at best, and non-existent at worst. What is the reason for you performing this task? Who are you working for? The bigger picture is kept hidden from you, and when you do find all anomalies the payoff doesn’t even reach the giddy heights of underwhelming. I came out of the experience utterly frustrated. It’s as if someone decided that they couldn’t be bothered to pen an actual conclusion, so threw in a random sequel-bait cutscene and then rolled the credits. 

So, what we’re left with is a pretty, repetitive spot-the-difference. Your success is peppered with some unnerving moments, but the two to three hours of gameplay is mostly mundanity leading to a throwaway conclusion. Shift 87 had the potential for so much more.
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